Tyndale Bulletin 5-6 (April, 1960) 4-18.

Some Egyptian Background To The Old

Testament*
by K. A. KITCHEN, University of Liverpool
THE PURPOSE of this paper is simply to give formal demonstration of the antiquity of certain concepts, and of the antiquity
and objective reality of certain usages: concepts and usages
which were part of the common intellectual, religious and
technical heritage of the Old Testament and Ancient Orient
alike. Most of the comparative material is drawn from Egypt
insofar as Egypt is the best such source for, e.g., Israel's contacts
with Egypt. However, on wider issues, material has sometimes
been taken from other Bible lands too: this paper is in no way
an exercise in 'pan-Egyptianism'.
I. CERTAIN CONCEPTS
Personification
Among the most notable passages in Proverbs are chapters
viiiix where Wisdom is personified. All too often this concept
is labelled 'advanced' and cited as a reason for regarding that
part of Proverbs as the latest in date, well after the Exile1
Personification here has even been linked with Greek influence2.
It is here suggested that late dating of the concept of personification as being 'advanced' is wholly mistaken, and appeal
to Greek affinities entirely pointless, if decisive Ancient Near
Eastern evidence be given its proper due. Personification of
qualities, attributes and objects formed part of the common
intellectual heritage of the Ancient Orient, of the Bible lands
themselves, from as early as the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC.
Thus, on the single criterion of personification3, there is no
* This article is based on a paper read at the Old Testament Study Group
July 1959.
1
Typical is W. O. E. Oesterley, Proverbs, Westminster Comm., 1929, xiii, xxvi.
2
Eissfeldt, Einleitung in d.A.T.; Pfeiffer, Introduction to the OT, 1948, 659.
3
The other, linguistic, criteria often adduced for late date must be dealt with
another time.

Kitchen: Egyptian Background

compulsion or need to date Prov. i-ix any later than Solomon's
time in the early 1st millennium BC.
Egypt furnishes a number of personifications of concepts and
qualities such as Wisdom. Already in the 3rd millennium BC,
Hik, 'Magic', is personified as a deity in human form in the
funerary temple of Sahur; in the Pyramid Texts (1324); and
even in a priestly title4. In the 2nd millennium BC, examples
multiply. Best-known are Hu and Sia, 'Authoritative Utterance' and 'Understanding' respectively, in the 3rd and
throughout the 2nd millennium BC5. In a very battered manuscript (c. 1320 BC) of the Middle Kingdom story of The
Sporting King (c. 1900 BC) there occurs the double-barrelled
personification Iir-Sedjmy, 'Sight-and-Hearing', a phenomenon paralleled at Canaanite Ugarit, see below6. Iret, 'Eye',
features in a Mythological Story of the same date. The fourteen
kas7 of the sun-god R, attested from the New Kingdom,
c. 1500 BC, are shown by later texts to personify a whole series
of qualities and states of being8.
That Egypt had no monopoly of this concept is clear from
Western Asiatic documents. Mesopotamia yields a similar
series of entities. In the early 2nd millennium, if not before, the
goddess Dam-gal-nun-na, wife of the god Enki or Ea, was
thought to be served by two ministers Uznu and Khasisu,
personifying 'Hearing' and 'Intelligence' respectively9. Likewise Namtaru, the messenger of the underworld goddess
Ereshkigal, is the personification of the Sumerian Nam-tar,
Destiny, in a legend on a Tell el-Amarna tablet of c. 1360 BC10.
The underworld itself was sometimes personified as Irkallatu11.
The personifications Kettu, 'Justice', and Mesharu, 'Law,
4

A. H. Gardiner, Proceedings of Society of Biblical Archaeology, 37, (1915), 253-262;

ibid., 39, (1917), 134-137.
5
Gardiner, ibid., 38, (1916) , 43-54, 83-95; ibid., 39, (1917), 138-9.
6
R. A. Caminos, Literary Fragments in the Hieratic Script, 1956, 35; and K. A.
Kitchen, Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, 44, (1958), 128.
7
The "ka" is a spiritual entity too complex to discuss here.
8
Gardiner, Proc. Soc. Bibl. Arch., 38, (1916), 84. See further, J. ern, Ancient
Egyptian Religion, 1952, 58-59; and esp. Gardiner, "Personification (Egyptian)",
in Hastings, Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, 9, 787-792.
9
E. Dhorme & R. Dussaud, Les Religions de Babylonie . . . Assyrie . . . Hittites .. .
etc., 1949, 37, 51.
10
Op. cit., 39-40, 52.
11
Loc. cit.

Tyndale Bulletin 5-6 (April 1960)

Right', also date back to the 2nd millennium BC12.
The Hurrians and Hittites were also familiar with such
concepts: 'Sincerity' and Law, Justice' were personified13, and
apparently 'Good' and Bad14: The Babylonian Mesharu
recurs in Hittite prayers of c. 1400 BC15. The names of the
divine bulls of the weather-god Teshup, Seri and Hurri, are
Hurrian for 'Day' and Night16 Two other personifications are
the Sea17 and Torpor(?)18.
From N. Syria the Canaanite texts from Ugarit also yield
several personifications : one must suffice here the artificergod, Kothar - w - Khasis, 'Skill - and - Understanding, Intelligence19. The Hittite, Hurrian and Ugaritic sources all date
from the 14th and 13th centuries BC, i.e. well within the
2nd millennium.
The foregoing evidence, a selection only, should be amply
sufficient to substantiate the claims made at the head of this
section. It would be most fitting that Solomon should preface
his proverbs proper with an introductory discourse (chapters
i-ix), as did some other sages of antiquity20; and in personifying
Wisdom c. 950 BC, he would be using for the expression of
divine truths, a figure of mind and speech very appropriate in a
world where personification of concepts like wisdom e.g.
intelligence, understanding, authoritative utterance, justice,
right, skill, etc. had been familiar over wide areas of the
Ancient East for well over a millennium before.
Prediction as a Valid Concept
Prediction of the future was regarded as a valid concept by the
Egyptians during at any rate the period of the 22nd to 13th
centuries BC, or in Biblical terms from before Abraham down,
till Moses' time at least. The evidence comes firstly from
12

Op. cit., 67, 89.

Op. cit., 340.
14
O. R. Gurney, The Hittites, Pelicans, 1952, 194.
15
H. G. Gterbock, Journal of American Oriental Society, 78, (1958), 241, 242, "the
personified 'Order of Justice' ".
16
Gurney, op. cit., 141.
17
Gurney, op. cit., 192; Guterbock, The Song of Ullikummi, 1952, passim.
18
Gurney, op. cit., 187.
19
C. H. Gordon, Ugaritic Manual, 1955, 282; Glossary No. 989.
20
So Ptahhotep and Amenemope in Egypt.
13

Kitchen: Egyptian Background

explicit allusions in literary works and secondly from works
which themselves were pseudo-prophecies, i.e. counterfeited a
recognised concept.
Describing the break-up of Egypt after the Pyramid Age, the
Admonitions of Ipuwer (23rd/22nd century BC) allude to 'that
which the ancestors had predicted'21. The slightly later Teaching for King Merikar also mentions a prediction of the
ancestors and then exhorts him, 'Be not on bad terms with
Upper Egypt, for you know about the prophecy of the Residence22 concerning it'23. Later still, the Prophecy of Neferty
from the early 12th Dynasty (c. 1990 BC) is a pseudo-prophecy
set in the reign of Snofru 700 years earlier but especially concerned to show forth the new dynast Amenemhat I as his
country's appointed (political and social) saviour. That such
pseudo-predictions should be deliberately produced argues
directly for the validity of prediction in the eyes of contemporaries24. Some centuries later, in a New Kingdom work of
about the 13th century BC, a writer extols the wisdom of the
sages already ancient in his time and twice speaks of them
having foretold the future25. From these examples, it is plain
to see that the concept of prediction was quite acceptable
among the Egyptians (as with the Hebrews), by contrast with
the attitude adopted by some varieties of Old Testament
scholar26.
II. SOME PRACTICES
Prefabricated Structures for Religious Use
The Tabernacle which Moses and Israel were commissioned to
construct at Sinai has been aptly characterised as 'a portable
temple'27. Exodus xxvi and xxxvi describe its main features: a
21

1:10. G. Posener, Littrature et Politique dans l'gypte de la XIIe Dynastie, 1956, 28;
transl., Erman & Blackman, Literature of the Ancient Egyptians, 1927, 94.
22
A term for the pharaoh's palace.
23
Posener, loc. cit.; Erman & Blackman, op. cit., 79, or Pritchard, Ancient Near
Eastern Texts rel. to OT, 1955, 416.
24
So also Posener, loc. cit. Transl., Erman & Blackman, op. cit., 110-115 and in
Pritchard, op. cit., 444-446 ("Neferrohu").
25
Papyrus Chester Beatty IV, verso 2:6, 3:7-8, in Gardiner, Hieratic Papyri in the
British Museum, 3rd Series, 1935, I, 38-9; II, Pls. 18-19.
26
For modern times cf. F. F. Bruce, Acts of the Apostles: Greek Text, Introduction and
Commentary, 1951, 13 and n.1 on Savonarola and others.
27
F. M. Cross, Biblical Archaeologist, 10:3, (1947), 61.

Tyndale Bulletin 5-6 (April 1960)

series of vertical boards or frames28 each with tenons to fit into
silver sockets, and linked along their length by bars through
rings, all the acacia-wood being overlaid with gold. Four
similarly wrought pillars supported a veil to screen-off the Holy
of Holies. The whole was to be covered by dyed linen curtains
coupled together with loops and clasps. Over these were placed
successively coverings of goats' hair, rams' skins dyed red, and
tahash, most probably worked leather29.
All too readily in the past, this structure has been dismissed as
pure fantasy from the mind of some late priestly compiler30, or
else as a late idealisation of some much simpler kind of tent in
terms of Solomon's temple31. Of late, however, the existence of
some kind of tent-shrine from Moses' time on has found favour
with those scholars who adduce as a parallel, the much later
pre-Islamic (and later) Arab tent-shrines such as the qubbah of
red leather often carried on camel-back32.
Hitherto-neglected Egyptian evidence for prefabricated
structures for religious and other uses definitively refutes the
charge of late fantasy with very early examples of the constructional techniques so airily dismissed; this evidence at the same
time provides a general background for portable structures
much closer in most essentials than the very late and inexact
parallels afforded by the old-Arabic qubbah.
Constructionally, the most striking item in the dossier is the
splendid, prefabricated, portable bed-canopy of Queen Hetepheres I, mother of Kheops who built the Great Pyramid,
28

Hebrew qerashim, taken by A. R. S. Kennedy, Hastings Dictionary of the Bible, IV,

s.v. "Tabernacle", and McNeile, Exodus, (Westminster Comm.), diagrams at
lxxxivv, as open frames rather than solid boards, of which the ends would still
form tenons to fit the sockets.
29
Heb. tahash is probably best derived from the old Egyptian word tj-h-s, "to treat
leather", Erman & Grapow, Wrterbuch d. Aeg. Sprache, V, 396, 7. So Bondi,
Aegyptiaca, 1-4, corrected by Griffith, in Petrie, Deshasheh, 1898, 45-6, and
revived by Albright and Cross, Bibl. Archaeol., 10, (1947), 62 and n.22.
30
"J. Wellhausen, Prolegomena to the History of Ancient Israel, Meridian ed., 1957,
39 "the tabernacle rests on an historical fiction" and "At the outset its
very possibility is doubtful". A. Bentzen, Intr. to OT, II, 34: "... quite
unrealistic.. "
31
So Galling, Exodus, 1939, 128ff. Also Cross, op. cit., 63-5, 68, who would allow
an ornate Tabernacle as early as David's reign.
32
Cross, loc. cit.; the main studies on this are by H. Lammens, Bulletin de l' Institut
Franais d'Archologie Orientale, 17, (1919), 39-101, and J. Morgenstern, Hebrew
Union College Annual, 17, (1943) 153-265; ibid., 18, (1944), 1-52.

Kitchen: Egyptian Background

c. 2600 BC33. This remarkable structure is a framework of long
beams along top and bottom separated by vertical rods and
corner-posts on three sides of a rectangle, with a lintel beam and
other horizontal 'roof-beams' across the top. The entire structure was of wood, was throughout overlaid with gold, had
hooks for curtains all round, and consisted entirely of beams
and rods fitting together with tenons in sockets for rapid and
customary erection and dismantling, just like the Hebrew
Tabernacle thirteen centuries later. Clearer evidence of the
practicality and actual use at a remote age of the very constructional techniques exemplified by the Tabernacle could hardly
be wished for. Moreover, this example is not isolated, and
further material helps to span the long period between Hetepheres' canopy and Moses' tabernacle.
During the Archaic Period and Old Kingdom, Egypt's first
great epochs (c. 2850-2200 BC), other similarly prefabricated
structures are known from actual remains and tomb-scenes,
and all more or less connected with religious usage34. Besides
Hetepheres' own bed-canopy which may have been last erected
over her coffin, and thus used as a funereal canopy, fragments
of canopy poles were found in a royal tomb of the 1st Dynasty
at Saqqara35, taking the history of these structures back to the
29th century BC. Four further canopies are depicted in
sculptured tomb-chapels of the 4th, 5th, and 6th Dynasties
(c. 2600-2200 BC)36.
A second form of prefabricated structure from the 3rd millennium is relevant not only constructionally but also as having
a specifically religious function. This is the Tent of Purification
(ibw) to which the corpses of royal and exalted personages were
borne for the rituals of purification both before and after
embalmment. From pictures in Old Kingdom tombs, it is clear
that these portable 'tents' were sizeable structures having hangings of cloth (like curtaining) upon a framework of vertical
33

G. A. Reisner and W. S. Smith, A History of the Giza Necropolis, II, 1955, the
splendid final publication. More accessible pictures in L. Cottrell, The Lost
Pharaohs, 1950, fig. 23 opp. p. 128, or W. S. Smith, Art and Architecture of Ancient
Egypt, 1958, Pls. 30, a; 34.
34
Reisner and Smith, op. cit., 14-15.
35
W. B. Emery, Great Tombs of the First Dynasty, I, 1949, 58, fig. 30.
36
Reisner and Smith, op. cit., 14 for references.

Tyndale Bulletin 5-6 (April 1960)

poles or pillars linked along the top by horizontal bars and
beams again, directly reminiscent of the Tabernacle37. In
conjunction with these edifices, a similar one, the sh, 'booth,
was used to shelter funerary equipment or the food-offerings
for a funerary banquet, all in a religious context. Besides the
representations already mentioned, actual remains of at least
two of these 'tents' appear to have been recovered. Earliest are
wooden fragments from a store-chamber among buildings
attached to the Step Pyramid of the 3rd Dynasty king Djoser,
c. 2650 BC38. Then, from the tomb-shaft of Queen Hetepheres
were recovered fragments of gilded wooden poles or pillars,
copper fittings and limestone sockets for the pillars: the same
techniques all over again39.
From the Middle Kingdom (c. 2000-1570 BC), contemporary with the Patriarchs, the evidence is at present less direct,
but see just below.
The remaining evidence comes mainly from the 18th and
19th Dynasties, c. 1570-1200 BC, i.e. during the period of
Israel's Egyptian sojourn and including the lifetime of Moses
(13th century BC). In the great temple of Amiin at Karnak in
Thebes, Tuthmosis III (c. 1470 BC) erected a great Festival
Hall, a translation into stone of a large tent-structure supported
on wooden pillars whose special forms were imitated40. It
appears to be linked with the Sed-festival, celebrated to obtain
renewal of a king's powers. In that festival, at all periods from
the 1st Dynasty through the Old, Middle and New Kingdoms
down to the end of Egyptian history, its special rituals seem to
have required light pillared pavilions on daises, which could be
put up for the occasion and then dismantled again.
In the tombs of the New Kingdom pharaohs it was customary to instal at burial four great prefabricated wooden shrines,
gold-overlaid, which were nested concentrically over the
coffins of the dead pharaoh. The only complete set surviving
37

B. Grdseloff, Das Aegyptische Reinigungszelt, 1941, plus E. Drioton, Annales du

Service des Antiquits de l' gypte, 40, (1940), 1008. Good pictures of "Tent of
Purification" showing construction in Blackman, Rock Tombs of Meir, V, 1952,
Pls. 42, 43.
38
Reisner and Smith, loc. cit.
39
Loc. cit. with Pl. 3.
40
Lange and Hirmer, Egypt, Phaidon, 1956, Pls. 137-9.

10

Kitchen: Egyptian Background

comes from the tomb of Tutankhamn, c. 1340 BC, only
shortly before Moses' time41. Each shrine is rectangular,
roofed, and has double doors at one end; each was prefabricated in several sections which were then assembled in the
king's tomb. These sections fitted together with tenon-andmortise joints and dowels, and the woodwork was overlaid with
gold throughout. The largest shrine was about 16 feet long by
11 feet wide by 9 feet high.
For the portable tent-structure strategically placed in the
centre of a rectangular camp of the tribes (cf. Nu. ii, x), the
abode of Israel's sole Sovereign with His people, it is significant
to note that the same strategic layout was utilised by Moses'
contemporary Ramesses II in his Syrian campaigning; the
divine king's large portable war-tent was pitched in the centre
of a rectangular encampment of the army-divisions42. Perhaps
in this Moses exploited his Egyptian training in the service of his
God and nation. It is especially noteworthy that this Egyptian
comparison should come from the very century in which Moses
lived. Later, in the 1st millennium, such military camps
apparently changed their shape : those shown on Assyrian royal
reliefs are round43. That tabernacular structures for religious
purposes were not wholly peculiar to Egypt is perhaps indicated
in the Ugaritic story of King Krt who performs certain rituals
in a tent44.
The upshot of all this is quite clear. The methods of construetion employed and the use of such prefabricated structures for
religious purposes are abundantly attested by actual remains,
pictures and texts in Egypt over a long period of time, many
examples long pre-dating Moses. Hence it is now entirely unnecessary to dismiss either the concept or construction of the
Tabernacle of Ex. xxvi, xxxvi as fantasy or free idealisation.
The Egyptian data here adduced cannot of course directly
prove the early existence of that Tabernacle, but it does create
a very strong presumption in favour of the reasonableness and
veracity of the straightforward Biblical account.
41

Most accessible photos, P. Fox, Tutankhamn's Treasure, 1951, Pls. 18 and 21.
E.g. Battle of Qadesh, c. 1285 BC: Ch. Kuentz, La Bataille de Qadech,1928-34,
Pls- 34, 39, 42.
43
Cf. G. Contenau, Everyday Life in Babylon and Assyria, 1954, Pl. 27.
44
So C. H. Gordon, Ugaritic Literature, 1949, 5-6, and 71 (Krt, 159ff).
42

11

Tyndale Bulletin 5-6 (April 1960)

Possibility of Hebrew Artisans at the Exodus
In connection with the Tabernacle, it is sometimes objected
that as a subject-race before the Exodus, the Hebrews would
have no skills such as the work of the Tabernacle required, and
could hardly have obtained the necessary materials even from
spoiling the Egyptians45. However, this is far from being
necessarily the case. Although many Semites in Egypt were put
to forced labour on brickmaking46, and transporting stone for
buildings47, some had other occupations.
During the New Kingdom, period of the Sojourn and
Exodus, there is ample if somewhat generalised evidence for
varied employment of foreign slaves, especially in the workshops and stores (ergastula) attached to temples and government institutions48. Instead of dragging stone, some Apiru are
to be found more congenially employed as vintners49. Numerous
tomb-scenes show 50 how greatly the Egyptians prized Semitic
craftsmanship in precious metals when exacting tribute from
Syria-Palestine and among the many Semites captive in
Egypt, craftsmen would be no less valued. Such Semites could
rise to official posts51 and in Ramesses II's reign some were even
trained for office52. The wealth of Egypt available in the
E. Delta in the 13th century BC must have been very considerable, for Pi-Ramess, Ramesses II's opulent Delta capital was
situated there in a prosperous region whose wonders were
lyrically praised by contemporary scribes53.
In view of these indications various skills would be represented among the Hebrews and 'mixed multitude' who left
Egypt; amply sufficient skills to furnish a Bezalel and an
45

S. R. Driver, Exodus (Cambs. Bible for Schools), 1911, 426-7; McNeile

Exodus, (Westm. Comm.), lxxxi.
46
See D. J. Wiseman, Illustrations from Biblical Archaeology, 1958, 44-5, fig. 38.
47
Mention of Egyptians and 'Apiru 'who drag stone to the great pylon', Caminos
Late Egyptian Miscellanies, 1954, 491.
48
A. M. Bakir, Slavery in Pharaonic Egypt, 1952, 44-45, 110-115; Gardiner, Ancient
Egyptian Onomastica, II, 1947, 209*-210*, No. 430; G. Posener, Syria, 18, (1937)
183-197.
49
T. Sve-Sderbergh, Orientalia Suecana, x, (1952), 5-14.
50
E.g. Wiseman, op. cit., fig. 29, opp. p. 34.
51
J. M. A. Janssen, Chronique d'Egypte, 26, (1951), 50-62.
52
S. Sauneron and J. Yoyotte, Revue d' Egyptologie, 7, (1950), 67-70.
53
Caminos, op. cit., 37-8, 73-4, 101, and cf. 198-201. Abridged, Pritchard, Anc.
N.E. Texts, 470-1.

12

Kitchen: Egyptian Background

Oholiab, and from the Egyptians in the E. Delta at that particular epoch spoils (Ex. xii, 35-36) amply sufficient for the work
of the Tabernacle.
Agricultural Statutes before Settlement in Canaan
It has sometimes been suggested that the provision in the
Pentateuchal laws for the regulation of agricultural and settled
life could not antedate Israel's settlement in Canaan, or have
been given at Sinai where it would be irrelevant to nomads54.
However, this view fails to allow for a whole series of facts
which make it much more prudent to retain the Biblical account
of Moses legislating intelligently for imminent occupation of
Canaan.
Firstly, from the start, there is no evidence that the Hebrews
were ever nomads in the conventional modern sense of desert
Bedouin. Ur of the Chaldees was a typical urban community
based directly on a thoroughly agricultural and pastoral
economy, as throughout early Mesopotamia55: hence, the
Patriarchs could be pastoralists and agriculturalists from the
outset. All round the so-called Fertile Crescent, semi-nomadic
people with their flocks and herds were to be found moving
slowly past or between the cultivated fields of the settled agricultural populations56, and sometimes themselves engaging in
some modest grain-growing or even settling down57. It is thus
no surprise to see Isaac growing an odd season's grain in Gen.
xxvi, 12 58, or to find Joseph's first dream set in the harvest-field,
Gen. xxxvii, 6-7. On this combined Biblical and extra-biblical
evidence, even the Patriarchs were by no means simple desert
nomads on the eve of their entering Egypt.
54

Wellhausen, Prolegomena . . . , 1957 ed., 93: "Agriculture was learned by the

Hebrews from the Canaanites in whose land they settled, and in commingling
with whom they . . . made the transition to a sedentary life." And likewise some
more recent writers.
55
Cf. H. Frankfort, Birth of Civilization in the Near East, 1951, 57ff, and ch. III
generally; the modern contrast between town and country was meaningless in
early Mesopotamia.
56
See statement of "ass-semi-nomadism" in Albright, Archaeology and Religion of
Israel, 1953, 96-102; but note that camels, domesticated, are now attested in an
18th century BC ration-list from Alalakh, Wiseman, Journal of Cuneiform Studies,
13, (1959), 29 (269 :59, GAM.*MAL*), and A. Goetze, ibid., 37.
57
Cf. J. R. Kupper, Les Nomades en Msopotamie au Temps des Rois de Mari, 1957, 31,
59, 75, 77, 91, 98-9, etc.
58
As noted by C. H. Gordon, Introduction to OT Times, 113.

13

Tyndale Bulletin 5-6 (April 1960)

It is at this point that conditions in the Egyptian E. Delta
become relevant. For 430 years, Israel lived and multiplied in
that area. During that entire period they lived in a prosperous
region famed alike for its cultivated crops, its rich pastures and
its marshes full of game-birds and fish59. It is inconceivable that
Israel should fail to gain agricultural experience, having begun
some crop-growing before entering Egypt and being constantly
confronted with its practice for four centuries thereafter.
Deut. xi, 10 indicates that in fact Israel did respond to conditions in Egypt. Furthermore, there was every facility for the
inhabitants of the E. Delta to know of conditions in nearby
Canaan: there was constant coming and going over the frontier60
by both Egyptians and Semites61. Hence, there is no reason
why Moses or anyone else in his position should not have been
able to plan for life in agricultural Canaan.
Finally it is important to remember that when the agricultural regulations in Ex. xxi-xxiii, etc. were proclaimed at
Sinai, Israel then anticipated speedy settlement in Canaan; it
was only after this that they brought upon themselves the
judgement of 40 years' sojourn in the wilderness, Nu. xiv, 26-35.
Likewise, references in Deuteronomy to agriculture, living in
houses, etc. must be considered against the occupation of
Transjordan by two and a half tribes before Moses' oration and
death, and against four centuries' sedentary life in Egypt.
Thus the Biblical references and the Egyptian and allied
background together provide a clear and realistic picture
which we are not entitled to doubt in the absence of any
objective external data to justify such doubts.
III. SOME LITERARY BACKGROUND
Transmission of Family Records for Long Periods
It is often assumed that written family records concerning the
Patriarchs may have been handed down from Joseph's time
through the four centuries of the Hebrew sojourn until Moses
day, and that such records were used by Moses and so lie
59

Lyrical scribal descriptions of Pi-Ramess area, Caminos, L. Eg. Miscell., 73-4

(Anc. N. E. Texts, 470-1); cattle and crops, Caminos, op. cit., 307.
60
Ibid., 108-9 for the journal of a frontier-official (Anc. N. E. T., 258-9).
61
Ibid., 293 (A.N.E.T., 259) for Edomite tribesfolk entering the Succoth region for
pasture. Runaway slaves escaping from Egypt, ibid., 255 (A.N.E.T., 259).

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Kitchen: Egyptian Background

behind the present book of Genesis62. Some indirect support for
this thesis can be obtained from Egyptian sources which show
clearly that transmission of family records over long periods of
time was perfectly practicable. This evidence comes from
genealogies and legal documents.
Genealogies. At least seven63 long genealogies are known, each
spanning several centuries; they vary in date from the 20th to
the 4th centuries BC in Biblical terms, from the age of the
Patriarchs to that of the Persians. They usually give the names
and titles in the male line, and sometimes the wives are also
named.
1. Ukhhotep, son of Ukhhotep and Mersi, was a Count of the
14th Upper Egyptian nome (province) who lived in the reign
of the 12th-Dynasty king Amenemhat II, c. 1925 BC, the period
of Abraham. In his tomb-chapel, he had sculptured a complete
list of his 59 forebears and predecessors-in-office with their
wives, each by name and apparently in chronological order64.
The earliest ancestor of the series seems to have lived in the 4th
Dynasty c. 2500 BC, so this record spans about 600 years, or
half as long again as the four centuries from Joseph to Moses.
The differing styles of the names indicate the genuineness of
this document.
2. On a slab in the Berlin Museum65 one Ankhef-enSekhmet, a priest of Ptah and Sekhmet, and living late in the
22nd Dynasty at c. 800/750 BC, traces back his ancestry for
60 generations far back to the distant reign of Nebhepetr
Mentuhotep I of the 11th Dynasty, c. 2050 BC, covering thus
the incredible span of some 1300 years. This is more than
thrice the length of the four centuries' period from Joseph to
Moses. At intervals, the names of contemporary kings are
mentioned, the later part of the document is confirmed by two
independent monuments in Cairo and Paris, and the names fit
62

E.g., J. Astruc, Conjectures sur les Mmoires . . . que Moyse s'est servi . . ., 1753; P. J.
Wiseman, New Discoveries in Babylonia about Genesis, 1948, 79-89; J. S. Wright,
How Moses Compiled GenesisA Suggestion.
63
An eighth of late date and very incomplete is preserved in the Ny Carlsberg
Museum, Copenhagen.
64
Blackman, Rock Tombs of Meir, III, 1915, 16-21, Pls. 10, 11, 29, 33:2, 35:1,
36:1, 37:1, 2. Further studied by L. Borchardt, Die Mittel zur Zeitlichen Festlegung
von Punkten der gyptischen Geschichte und ihre Anwendung, 1935, 112-114.
65
Fully edited by Borchardt, op. cit., 96-112 with Pls. 2, 2a.

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Tyndale Bulletin 5-6 (April 1960)

the periods assigned them, so that the genuineness of this
record also is beyond doubt. That these two genealogies, if
remarkable, are not unique is shown by the existence of the
following five examples.
3. Harkhebit, a priest who apparently lived c. 700 BC in the
general period the 22nd to 26th Dynasties, has left record of 17
lineal ancestors reaching back to the late 18th Dynasty c. 1350
BC, and so spanning roughly 650 years66.
4 & 5. In the 3rd year of the 25th Dynasty king Tanutamn
c. 661 BC, two newly-inducted priests exhibited their ecclesiastical pedigrees by leaving a record of 13 ancestors in the one
case and 16 in the other, reaching back some 340 to 400 years to
between 1000 and 1100 BC67.
6. When visiting the quarries in Wady Hammamat in the
desert E. of the Nile in the 26th year of Darius I (c. 496 BC), the
chief architect Khnumibr left a long record of 22 ancestors
extending back at least 750 years to the time of Ramesses II of
the 19th Dynasty68. Besides its value in the present connection
(long transmission), this genealogy is of interest in covering
about the same span of time as that of the Hebrew high priests
in the Old Testament; like theirs it also shows several repetitions of certain names in various generations. Such repetitions
merely illustrate the sustained popularity of such names over a
period and must not be dismissed as mere doublets in either
case.
7. Finally, a slab from the tomb of Patjenef, a high priest in
Heliopolis (Biblical On) who lived in the 30th Dynasty
c. 350 BC, shows him offering to 12 ancestors, 'his fathers and
mothers', who probably covered some 400 years back to
c. 700 or 750 BC69.
These examples all show the feasibility of accurate transmission of family lineage over very long periods of time, and
are comparable in general style with the toledoth , generations,
of Gen. v and xi. The legal documents next to be cited show a
66

Hieratic stela, Mariette, Karnak, 1875, P1. 46, transcribed by Spiegelberg,

Proc. Soc. Bibl. Arch., 24, (1902), 320-4.
67
Borchardt, op. cit., 93-4 with references.
69
Couyat and Montet, Les Inscriptions Hiroglyphiques . . . du Ouadi Hammamat, 1912,
67-9, Pl. 22, Nos. 91, 93-92. Borchardt, op. cit., 95-6.
69
F. Ll. Griffith, The Antiquities of Tell el Yahudiyeh, 1890, 67-8 and Pl. 22, A.

16

Kitchen: Egyptian Background

like transmission of other details besides just personal names.
Legal Documents
1. The sale of the Countship of Nekheb (now El Kab, in
Upper Egypt) by one Kebsi to his relative Sobknakht in settlement of a debt, dated to the 1st year of Nebiryerau I (c. i 66o/
1650 BC). Before consummation of the sale, Kebsi's title to his
Countship had to be verified; and documents were examined
and cited to confirm that it had come down to him in due legal
form from his grandfather who received the Countship in the
1st year of Sobkhotep VI some 40/60 years earlier. The transmission and availability of the legal documents consulted was
noteworthy in that the seizure of power by the Hyksos or
Shepherd Kings and consequent transfer of the centre of the
native Egyptian administration from Memphis to Thebes had
all happened between the drawing-up of the first documents
and their consultation at the time of Kebsi's sale. This episode
falls into roughly the same period as Joseph.70
2. The inscription of Mes71. This text is a summary of long
litigation over ownership of some land, which had involved the
production or citation of registers and documents relating to the
original grant of the land far back in the days of Ahmose I
(1570-1550 BC). The final lawsuit of Mes, the outcome of
which occasioned the inscription, took place some years after
the 18th year of Ramesses II, i.e. after c. 1270 BC, giving a span
of 300 years from the original land-grant and first records down
to Mes's final lawsuit to recover his inheritance. The people
involved were private individuals of comfortable station, holding positions connected with the royal administration. This
text shows clearly that documents or record of documents were
kept over centuries; and that even when such were stored in
official archives, the people whose interests they recorded could
readily gain access to them when need arose, even though they
themselves were just ordinary officials, though by no means
illiterate peasants. This text of Mes is the more relevant because it covers most of the very same period which elapsed
between Joseph and Moses, and is thus a strictly contemporary
example of transmission.
70
71

Published by P. Lacau, Une Stle Juridique de Karnak, 1949.

Gardiner, The Inscription of Mes, in Untersuchungen, IV:3, 1905.

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Tyndale Bulletin 5-6 (April 1960)

In the light of this varied evidence, it is clear that Joseph as a
high minister of state in Egypt would have every facility for
recording patriarchal traditions of his forebears, and for
transmitting them through the hands of his descendants until
Moses' time. Such records need not even have been written in
Egyptian; the proto-Sinaitic script was already available for
use with Joseph's own West-Semitic dialect72. Good papyrus
made quite durable documents : witness the sheet from the
criminal-register of the prison at Thebes which after 70 year's
use at different times still served to record a bequest of servants73. And many Egyptian papyri have survived untold
centuries to the present day in good condition. So, any documents for which Joseph might have been responsible could
readily have survived until Moses' time, with or without
occasional recopying. The data here adduced cannot actually
prove that such a transmission occurred but it does create a
strong presumption in favour of some such view.
The above brief studies are but a puny handful of points
from the great store of information furnished by Egypt and
Western Asia. On Egypt and the Old Testament, and on unexplored tracts in the realm of the literary background provided by Egyptian and other texts for study of the structure of
the Old Testament, it is hoped to produce further and fuller
works in the reasonably near future.
72

The Shechem Plaque, about the earliest known example at present, dates from
c. 1800 BC
73
W. C. Hayes, A Papyrus of the Late Middle Kingdom in the Brooklyn Museum, 1955;
its relevance to Joseph's day briefly appreciated, Kitchen, Tyndale House
Bulletin, No. 2, (1957), I-2.

18